“The Centre now salutes the French Justice system for its last minute reversal in accepting a new appeal on behalf of the survivors and the victims’ families and the requirement for Diab’s renewed detention,” commended Samuels.

“The Paris tribunal now has the opportunity to finally bring justice to those who have waited for almost 38 years, thus strike a blow against the proliferation of terrorism today,” concluded Samuels.

“After 37 years of waiting, justice delayed in this case is truly justice denied... Madam Minister, we demand an appeal and the continued detention of Hassan Diab.”

Paris, 12 January 2018

In a letter to French Justice Minister, Nicole Belloubet, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, chided today’s Paris tribunal ruling to free Copernic Synagogue bomber suspect from detention, on the decision of the investigating magistrates, thereby rejecting the evidence and arguments brought last summer by the magistrates of the civil parties – in the name of the victims.

Samuels had accompanied Aliza Shagrir, wife of the Israeli film-maker, to the corner of rue Copernic. She had entered the street of the synagogue where she met her death.

In a letter to the French Interior Minister, Gerard Collomb, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed concern that "this morning’s fire-bombing of the Kosher mini-market, Promo and DeStock, in the Paris suburb of Creteil, is following a pattern in the aftermath of last week’s swastika graffiti on two Kosher shops in the same city. What begins with words, then deeds, lead on to violence."

The letter noted that "we have just marked the third anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket massacres that resulted in armed military placed outside Jewish establishments."

“Redeem the land of Anne Frank by ending the Dutch fiscal obscene demands on a 138 euro ($156) monthly German compensation.”

Paris, 8 January 2018

In a letter congratulating Netherland’s Interior Minister, Kaysa Ollengren, on her appointment, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed outrage at an incomprehensible “violation of the humanitarian values ostensibly propended by the Netherlands.”

Samuels lamented that “your tax authority apparently demands a fiscal percentage of the 138 euros ($156) monthly compensation paid by Germany to 86 year old Inge Prenzlau, for her suffering as an 11 year old slave labourer.”

The letter added, “reportedly, your government coalition partner, the DGG party, has argued that a concession to Ms. Prenzlau would set a precedent,” continuing, “On the other hand, on 1 January, The Hague municipality launched a 2.6 million euro ‘moral restitution’ fund to justifiably return property taxes demanded from Jewish Holocaust survivors since the end of World War II. The City’s statement declares that: ‘Now the Municipality sees that this approach was too one-sided and showed no understanding for the suffering and horrors experienced by the Jewish community’.”

The Centre argued that “this dichotomy is redolent of the wartime contradictions between righteousness and collaboration under Nazi Occupation.”

“We urge you to redeem the land of Anne Frank by influencing your government to take the humanitarian route to ending the obscene Dutch fiscal persecution of senior citizen Inge Prenzlau,” concluded Samuels.